Ukraine GRL
UVA Ukraine Green Recovery Lab
Izium, Ukraine
Building a Stronger Future
UVA, Penn State & MIT were individually tasked with devising propositions for the rebuilding of various cities across Ukraine. These propositions would be in direct response to the ending of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict, and provide a new, environmental & safety focused plan for the future development of Ukrainian cities.
We decided the best way to go about this endeavor was to split our work into multiple subjects of importance, and create individual plans for the development of those specific aspects. This included energy, green space, housing, industry, monuments, and the group I was in: schools. We focused upon three different schools throughout the city, and focused on introducing new ways of staged development that took advantage of the possibilities of experiential design. Our executive summary is as follows:
“Schools play a vital role in communities. They serve many functions alongside providing learning and development opportunities for youth. Schools can act as centers of the community by bringing people together, providing a sense of purpose, and creating common ground. Formal and informal education activities have also been shown to be useful in response to significant disruptions of family and community networks due to loss, displacement, family separation, community fears and distrust. We focus on the rebuilding of three different schools in Izium: Kindergarten No 2, School No 4, and Izium medical college.
We aim to provided a wide array of ideas at different scales of severity, with different levels of change to what was previously there. We have had our share of introspection, and understand that our suggestions, ideas, and responses are limited in scope. By no means is this a projection of what we believe the future of the city to look like, rather we are providing options we firmly believe in. However, it is beyond our authority to label a design intervention as the ultimate truth. It is up to the citizens of Izium to take what we have produced, pull moments from it and decide if, how, and when they wish to apply it. Designing and reimagining schools represents a new beginning and an opportunity to create a space that can nurture and educate future generations, despite the challenges of the past.”
I worked on a conceptual redevelopment for the Izium medical college with Benjamin Edlavitch, which considered ways that the aggregation of pre-fabricated materials could create a new way of organization for the college. The introduction of the exam-room as a unit permitted the creation of an outdoor circulation, which would cut down on costs and be added upon in the future. The sizing and organization drew inspiration from UVA practices, as the exam room concept came from UVA’s own practices of the medical college.
Developed between August
Project led by Prof. Suzanne Moomaw